Rare earth elements (REEs) are widely used for many commercial applications in high-technology and national defense over the past four decades. However, there are several issues of REEs supply for the United States including the dependence on imports from China and losing its leadership in many areas of REEs technologies. Because of China's export restrictions and growing internal demand for its REEs, additional rare earth capacity has been expected to be developed in the United States, Australia and Canada.
Currently, bastnaesite and monazite are two major economically exploited rare earth minerals throughout the world. A large amount of literature has been published to investigate the separation of bastnaesite and monazite from their gangue minerals such as calcite, barite, and apatite. Nevertheless, other rare earth minerals have been rarely studied. In this research, ancylite, a rare earth strontium carbonate, will be investigated for its surface characterization. The fundamental studies of pure ancylite, strontianite and calcite flotation behaviors in the presence of hydroxamic acid will be also studied. Another focus of this study will be on the recovery of ancylite from an ore sample containing ancylite from Bear Lodge rare earth deposit, located in Wyoming.